At this point in the holiday season, perhaps your Christmas shopping is almost complete—just one or two more items to buy. In Jeremiah 13, God sends his prophet to the local department store with only one item on his shopping list: “a linen loincloth.” He’s not told to wrap it as a present for someone else, but to wrap it around his own waist. Jeremiah was the proud owner of a brand new, unwashed belt. No doubt, this bright new accessory added style to his prophetic wardrobe, and people were both impressed and surprised (v 1-2). But then God told him to do something even stranger: go bury it far away, at the Euphrates River! Imagine his neighbors’ curiosity when he returned from his 300 mile journey—three months later—and without his celebrated belt. When God later sent him back to dig it up, enough time had passed for the loincloth to be ruined. It was threadbare, dirty, and “good for nothing” (v 3-7). But it did give Jeremiah a good visual aid for his prophecy. The linen belt was meant to be a picture of the LORD’s relationship with His people. As a belt “clings to the waist of a man,” God “made” them that they might “cling” to Him. He intended “that they might be for Me a people, a name, a praise, and a glory.” God longed for them to be bright and clean, wrapped around His waist in a close bond, like a warm hug. Instead, they rejected Him to embrace other gods. Like the dirty and ruined loincloth, they had become “good for nothing,” unfit to fulfill their primary purpose of glorifying God (v 8-11). Four more prophetic messages round out the chapter. The first Is based on the popular slogan, “Every jar shall be filled with wine.” It’s not hard to get an Amen to this sermon! But then Jeremiah shocks the people, saying they were the wine bottles, not the drinkers. They are about to be smashed like never before, as God pours the bitter wine of His wrath into all of them (v 12-14). The next message is urgent, for it pictures the people of God on a mountain at twilight. If they humbly give glory to God, they will have His ever-increasing light. But if they are too proud to hear His Word, they will soon be overtaken by darkness, stumbling into captivity. Jeremiah can only weep (v 15-17). Another sermon takes the form of a royal dirge. The tone is sad; the facts are hard. But no one is so high as to be exempt from God’s judgment (v 18-19). Finally, Jeremiah foretells the destruction of Jerusalem and its citizens. Like a loose woman, they have flirted with false gods, but God will uncover and judge their sins. Is there any hope? Certainly no sinner can “change” himself, but in Jesus Christ we can indeed be “made clean” (v 20-27). For further meditation: